ok so basically we know that Ronan plays tennis, right? I need someone to hear me out on this because I don’t really have something very substantial, but imagine an au where Ronan is a professional tennis player. Ronan is really angry, which means that he would 100% be the type to throw his racket around when he starts losing. It also means that he would angrily serve balls into the net and hit them over like he’s aiming to hit the ball kids in the background, or at least scare them. Adam could be someone of a similar ranking so they have to commonly play together. Or maybe they were on the same school team? It could be a ‘want to win vs. need to win’ type of situation. Adam would be one of those tennis prodigies, and maybe he was forced into tennis by his parents as an attempt to be them out of poverty? But the older he gets the harder it is to fund and he gets moved down and he and Ronan don’t really play against each other anymore, but whilst they did they managed to strike up a rivalry.
Gansey would be Ronan’s coach, and he’s constantly trying to convince Ronan to not lose his shit. Blue would be Adam’s, (or she would be someone else idk work in progress) and she and Gansey meet each other at one of their matches where they hit it off.
Then, they somehow get paired up for a doubles tournament, and they have to start training together. This happens because Ronan’s usual doubles partner (Noah) gets injured and is unable to play for the season because of it. However, this forces Ronan and Adam to get closer, and Blue and Gansey spend more time together. Adam and Ronan manage to work themselves out before they arrive to the finals, but only when Ronan and Adam win the finals do Gansey and Blue have their moments of Realization ™️. Noah cheers them on from the sidelines.
(and ofc there’s the wiping of sweat with shirts, and Adam following the droplets of sweat down Ronan’s back and there’s Noah making fun of everybody because he’s figured them all out)